social influence Flashcards
drawing attention
through social proof, eg when restaurants and places were exclusive to whites in america and the civil rights marches drew attention to the problem through social proof
consistency
the views must be consistent between the people in the minority, makes people rethink their own views
synchronic consistency
all saying the same thing
diachronic consistency
saying the same thing for some time
deeper processing
means people who just followed the status quo began to think about the unjustness
augmentation principle
engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their ideas as it shows they are commited to the cause
the snowball effect
increasing numbers begin to agree with the minority and the more this happens the faster the rate of conversion. gradually the minority become the majority
social cryptomnesia
when a change has happened but people arent aware of how or when and cant remember a time when this wasnt the norm
lessons from conformity
Asch’s research about confederates has shown how dissenting is powerful which may be used to lead to social change
lessons from obedience research
milgrams research highlights the importance of disobedient role models. zimbardo suggested this can lead to social change through gradual commitment
strengths of social influence an social change
research showed that normative social influence was effective in that no matter how a question was worded, it still illicit a change so it only has to be present for there the be an effect
weaknesses of social influence and social change
it is only indirectly effective as it is only effective when it is related to the issue and not the central issue itself and it takes a long time for it to take any effect. moscovici also showed that it is only effective when the majority change their views as it is different cognitive processes
moscovici et al 1969
showed 6 ppl 36 blue slides and asked them whether they were blue or green there were 2 confederates that said they were green and 32% gave the wring answer at least once. when the minority influence was not consistent agreement fell to 1%.
limitation of moscovici’s study
artificial tasks lower the external validity as it does not refllect the way people would react in real life situations. generalisations cannot be made and so the study has little application
strength of mminority influence
research demonstrates the importance of consistency and moscovici showed inconsistency led to less agreement. meta analysis of 100 studies showed those that were consistent were more influential
research shows it does involve deeper processing and when it is it has a deeper effect
